Peter of Savoy

Where did the story that ended with the great Edwardian castles of north Wales begin?How was it that hundreds of men from Savoy built castles in north Wales? Whose stylisedstatue sits outside the Savoy Hotel in London on the site of his former palace? Whose castleof Pevensey endured successfully the longest English siege? Why does much of Switzerland speak French to this day? Why do we find elements of theMagna Carta in the Statutes of Savoy? Who was one of the greatest figures of thethirteenth century? Peter of Savoy, known to chroniclers of his homeland as The Little Charlemagne. Peter of Savoy came to England as the uncle of Queen Alianor de Provence, the consort of KingHenry III. He quickly found favour as one of Henry's closest advisers and noblemen. Peter was in effect Queen Alianor's right-hand man in England, her protector, andsubsequently the protector of Lord Edward, the future King Edward I. He played a keyrole in Henry's military and diplomatic efforts to recover his ancestral lands in France whichculminated in the 1259 Treaty of Paris. This rapprochement between the Capetians andPlantagenets might have warded off the Hundred Years War, but it was not to be. Nonetheless, the nineteenth-century monks of Savoy thought it his greatestaccomplishment. Peter played a key role in the Second Baronial War which engulfed Henry'sreign, at first siding with Simon de Montfort but then changing sides as the reformmovement veered toward xenophobia.Returning to Savoy he laid the foundationsfor the County of Savoy to become a powerful Duchy which in turn almost became a countrybefore it was dismembered by Switzerland, Italy and France. His historical reputationsuffered at the hands of English chroniclers keen to eulogise the Montfortian regime. Thiswork is an attempt to discover the real Peter of Savoy.